Author Archives: Andrea Nguyen

Folk Belief – Botswana

“The tokoloshe are like these small, evil little demons that come out and get you.  They’re evil spirits, and you can tell they’re close from little things, like wild dogs barking at night.”

Ruchira, or Rucci as he prefers to be called, said that while he was living in southern Africa, he first heard about the tokoloshe on a school camping trip with his classmates when he was twelve years old.  As they sat around a campfire sharing stories “out in the open, in the bush,” a pack of wild dogs started barking in the distance.  Rucci said that their camping guide then proceeded to explain to them that when wild dogs start barking at night, evil, dangerous spirits like the tokoloshe are close and waiting to prey.  Rucci said that since then, he still has a fear of the tokoloshe and attributes the howls of wild dogs at night to be significant of the presence of lurking demons.

Folk beliefs, then, play a serious part in determining a person’s identity and the beliefs themselves are unique to each individual—so much that perhaps they can even be considered a part of the individual’s religious beliefs.  According to Rucci, the people who are at most risk are those who do not believe in the tokoloshe.  In turn, those who do believe are more likely to pray to God and read the Bible; therefore, the best way to protect oneself is to believe in the evil spirits.  Rucci mentioned that there are also things people can do to prevent being approached by a tokoloshe.  People often visit witch doctors or put something underneath the legs of their bed to raise it and keep it out of reach of the small tokoloshe.  Yet once a person is approached by a tokoloshe, he basically falls completely under the spirit’s control and the tokoloshe will possess him.  Thus, belief in the tokoloshe can actually lead to increased practicing of religion and continue to affect one’s everyday life.

In T. Sharper Knowlson’s book The Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs, this idea is further reiterated, explaining that some beliefs maintain that the sound of howling dogs is foreshadowing the misfortunes and dangers that are to come to those who hear it.  However, it also slyly points out that “the remarkable phenomenon is the number of people who live after listening to many howlings.”  Evidently, Rucci is one of those people, living to tell of his experiences in gaining new folk beliefs.

Annotation: Knowlson, T. Sharper.  The Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs.  Detroit: Gale Research Company, Book Tower, 1968, pg. 172-73.

Joke – Irvine, California

“Why doesn’t Mexico have an Olympic team?

Because everyone who can run, jump, and swim is already out of the country!”

Hearing this joke from one of his cross-country teammates during one of their warm-up stretches during senior year, Aaron said that telling racist and sexist jokes were often ways to pass the time and bond with each other, albeit over jokes that “were so bad [ethically], but you couldn’t help but laugh.”  In sharing politically incorrect jokes about different ethnicities and genders, this group of high school boys was perpetuating blason populaires, or popular conceptions and stereotypes of peoples.

In particular, this ethnic joke that Aaron told me is not directly negative, but could be viewed as negative towards Mexicans in the ideas that it implies.  The joke presents stereotypes of all Mexicans in America or countries besides Mexico as illegal immigrants, and it alludes to such ideas as Mexicans crossing borders by running from authorities, swimming across rivers, and leaping over fences to escape to America.  Yet to what extent could the joke’s implications be true, if at all?  Is it a self-fulfilling prophecy?  For the joke to emerge and circulate in the first place means that the popular conceptions surrounding the joke’s subject may be true, or at least a topic of debate.  While it is a fact that large numbers of Mexicans have come to America as illegal immigrants, what makes the joke controversial is its inclusion of the word “everyone” and its implication that all Mexicans with Olympic-worthy athletic skills have left to become illegal immigrants.

With all the current political issues surrounding illegal immigration laws and the influx of foreigners into the United States, the joke’s reference to the lengths that some immigrants will go to to create new lives in a new country are relevant, understandable, and able to be seen as humorous.  Simply the fact that Aaron was able to understand the joke and laugh with his peers proves that he is part of that community, that group which he can identify with.  This is further evidence that blason populaires can indeed create ideas of identity by categorizing people as “them” and “us.”

Legend – Turkey

Ye Kurkum Ye – Nasrettin Hoca Hikayeleri (Eat My Fur Eat – The Stories of Nasrettin Hoca)

“This guy Nasrettin Hoca goes to a dinner party and he’s dressed in these old, ratty clothes and basically looks like a hobo.  The people there refuse to give him food or a table so then he leaves and goes home.  He changes into really nice clothes and goes back to the party where he’s given the best table and the best food.  He takes off his nice jacket and puts it in his food, and says my clothes can eat!”

Hande said that she learned this Turkish legend about a man named Nasrettin Hoca from her parents when she was a small child and living in Turkey at the time.  She said that she remembers going to a restaurant with her parents and her younger brother and, “like a little brat,” loudly expressing disgust at a stranger who was dressed in worn-down clothes and also waiting for a table.  At the restaurant, her mother and father immediately scolded her and took her outside to reprimand her not to act that way in public.  Then, once the family returned home, Hande and her brother were made to listen to their parents tell the legend of Nasrettin Hoca.  So for Hande, the legend served as an important tool for her parents to teach her about acceptable behavior in public, good manners, as well as the concept of looking underneath the surface and not judging other people from their appearances.

Thinking back, Hande said that for all she knew, the man at the restaurant could have had a million reasons to look the way he did, and that she still feels embarrassed when she thinks about what she did.  Just as the other guests at the dinner party in the legend must have learned from Hoca’s actions, so Hande must have learned from her own actions and her parents’ passing down of their folklore.  The legend of Hoca and the idea that a change in appearance inevitably brings about different reactions in other people was certainly relevant to real life and Hande’s in particular.  Though legends may or may not be true and invite discussions about belief, they can absolutely still be relatable and important to one’s own life and times.

Game – Irvine, California

Around the World

“Around the World is kind of like a tricky thinking game, where you have to catch on to the pattern and see how long it takes everyone else to realize it too.  So basically you tell your friends, ‘I’m going to name a place.  It can be any kind of place, whether it’s a city, country, continent, theme park, school, whatever.  Your job is to figure out which place we can go to next.  There are only certain places we can go to, so you’ll have to figure out the pattern.’  Then you start the game by naming a place that begins with the letter ‘A,’ because the pattern is that you are actually spelling ‘Around the world’!  So then you can say like ‘OK, the first place we will go to is Africa,’ and then you ask your friends what the next place you can go to is.  So they keep guessing, and you say yes or no depending if they choose a place that begins with the letter ‘R.’ You can help them out if they are having a lot of difficulty by saying, ‘OK fine…the next place we are going to go to is Richmond.  And then you just keep this up until someone figures out the pattern and can help you continue the game, as the rest of your friends are still confused.  Basically the point of the game is to figure out the pattern, feel smart about yourself, and then see how long it takes your friends to figure it out!”


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Hande told me that she first learned this game from her Varsity Girls’ Basketball teammates while they were on a trip to San Diego for a tournament. In their downtime, the girls would play these kinds of puzzling games and see who was the sharpest at figuring out the patterns. Those who already knew how to play got to administer the games while the “newbies” were stuck trying to solve the game. Hande said that although she wished she was already “in the know” and not one of the people trying to figure out the game, she had a lot of fun playing and after she figured out the pattern, it was almost a bittersweet kind of feeling because she would never be able to re-experience the process of playing the game and figuring out the patterns. In this sense, those who already knew how to play the game and those who did not belonged to separate communities and, during the game, could only identify themselves with certain people—those who shared the same level of newness or experience. The game was therefore like a kind of initiation process—once the player figures out the pattern and realizes how the game is played, they are no longer part of the “new” group but now a member of the “elite” group that possesses knowledge of and experience with the game. Games like Around the World certainly serve not only as fun ways to pass time and trick one’s friends but also as unifying elements that contribute to group identity and one’s affiliation with certain groups or organizations.

Around the World

“Around the World is kind of like a tricky thinking game, where you have to catch on to the pattern and see how long it takes everyone else to realize it too. So basically you tell your friends, ‘I’m going to name a place. It can be any kind of place, whether it’s a city, country, continent, theme park, school, whatever. Your job is to figure out which place we can go to next. There are only certain places we can go to, so you’ll have to figure out the pattern.’ Then you start the game by naming a place that begins with the letter ‘A,’ because the pattern is that you are actually spelling ‘Around the world’! So then you can say like ‘OK, the first place we will go to is Africa,’ and then you ask your friends what the next place you can go to is. So they keep guessing, and you say yes or no depending if they choose a place that begins with the letter ‘R.’ You can help them out if they are having a lot of difficulty by saying, ‘OK fine…the next place we are going to go to is Richmond. And then you just keep this up until someone figures out the pattern and can help you continue the game, as the rest of your friends are still confused. Basically the point of the game is to figure out the pattern, feel smart about yourself, and then see how long it takes your friends to figure it out!”

Hande told me that she first learned this game from her Varsity Girls’ Basketball teammates while they were on a trip to San Diego for a tournament. In their downtime, the girls would play these kinds of puzzling games and see who was the sharpest at figuring out the patterns. Those who already knew how to play got to administer the games while the “newbies” were stuck trying to solve the game. Hande said that although she wished she was already “in the know” and not one of the people trying to figure out the game, she had a lot of fun playing and after she figured out the pattern, it was almost a bittersweet kind of feeling because she would never be able to re-experience the process of playing the game and figuring out the patterns. In this sense, those who already knew how to play the game and those who did not belonged to separate communities and, during the game, could only identify themselves with certain people—those who shared the same level of newness or experience. The game was therefore like a kind of initiation process—once the player figures out the pattern and realizes how the game is played, they are no longer part of the “new” group but now a member of the “elite” group that possesses knowledge of and experience with the game. Games like Around the World certainly serve not only as fun ways to pass time and trick one’s friends but also as unifying elements that contribute to group identity and one’s affiliation with certain groups or organizations.

Folk Speech/Humor – Irvine, California

“When Chuck Norris jumps into a pool he doesn’t get wet, the pool gets Chuck Norris.”

“Chuck Norris can count to infinity…twice.”

“Chuck Norris can win Connect Four in three moves.”

In my close group of friends, when I heard my male friends all joking about the same YouTube videos and inside jokes, I decided to ask Aaron about some of them.  Since none of the girls understood what the guys were talking about, I wanted to at least clear up some confusion.  Aaron told me that when they joked about Chuck Norris and his special abilities, it was because they all recognized him, had seen videos of him and all held the same opinions about him—that he was a hotshot who could beat up anyone who crossed his path with his expert martial arts skills while at the same time still wearing cowboy boots and being known as “Walker Texas Ranger” from the popular television show.  Because my male friends are so tight-knit, they constantly share the same folklore like jokes, videos, games, and bits of trivia that they pick up with each other.  In this sense, the shared sense of humor and folk speech provide them with a strong feeling of community and identity; they are the only ones who recognize the significance of that certain joke or piece of folk speech.  They create a separate group for themselves this way, leaving the females out of the loop.  So in this way, they are also creating an identity for themselves through the separation of the sexes.  Aaron said that if he explained their folklore to a stranger, especially a girl, that person might be able to understand it and enjoy it but would never fully grasp its significance or fully appreciate it exactly as they do in their small group of guys.  However, I partially disagree with this because it seems to be more a matter of time and experience than intuition and closeness.  Just by spending some time catching up on videos seen, items heard, and by acquiring first-hand explanations of those jokes, one could start to become acquainted with the group and share in the same identity with not much difficulty.  So in a way, it is possible to join in, or even “infiltrate” as Aaron calls it, any particular group and share in a certain identity simply by becoming accustomed and familiar with that group and its members’ beliefs, values, and traditions.  Everyone searches for both an individual and group sense of identity, and attaining that feeling of community and togetherness is very much possible.